DC’s Legends of Tomorrow review: “Back to the Finale Part II”

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow tackles a story as old as time: Sara Lance’s (Caity Lotz) death. If you’ve followed her story through the years dating back to Arrow, you know that Sara Lance has died multiple times, and always found a way to come back.

But after last week’s episode revealed that the real Sara Lance died and the one we’ve been seeing all season is actually a clone, it left little room for her to return again…well, unless there’s a Lazarus Pit close by or something.

This week addresses these lingering questions and pits Sara against Bishop (Raffi Barsoumian), the man responsible for doing this to her. But while Sara dealt with her situation, the Legends concocted a plan to travel back in time to the season 5 finale to save her from ever being abducted, and I loved every moment of it; nothing like a show getting meta.

The plan, of course, doesn’t go flawlessly, but in the end they make it work, even if it means messing with the fabric of space and time. More on that below! Watch out for SPOILERS!

Bishop’s betrayal

As Sara discovers her dead (and very creepy) body, Bishop unravels his ingenious plan to duplicate her. If you could get your hands on an army of Sara Lances, wouldn’t you consider it? It’s like the League of Assassins times a hundred!

Bishop is an intriguing character, and the fact that he thoroughly enjoys being a clone who can keep regenerating is quite hilarious. So when he shoots himself in the face in order to get a new body, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

After settling into a new body, Bishop tells Sara his intentions with cloning her: he wants to take alien DNA and merge it with Sara to create a hybrid, basically a Sara alien.

Overcome with emotion — mainly anger over him taunting her with the engagement ring she wanted to propose to Ava with — Sara finds herself being sent to the incinerator. At this point, she is disposable, so her “death” is inconsequential.

Mission: Rescue Sara

Meanwhile, Kayla (Aliyah O’Brien) and Mick (Dominic Purcell) are on a mission to save Sara from Bishop. Side note: I love how Legends of Tomorrow introduces new characters on a whim and somehow we get attached to them. I love the Kayla/Rory dynamic we’ve been seeing over the past few episodes!

The duo makes a deal to save Sara before the planet’s third moon sets. Before long, Rory is found by some of the Ava clones, who luckily are with Gary (Adam Tsekhman). Together, they rescue Sara, but their mission has barely just begun.

Bishop must be stopped, which means blowing his lab to smithereens to prevent him from cloning himself once again. While getting the generators set up, Sara realizes that Bishop has already messed around with her DNA. She ends up cutting herself while working on the generators and immediately regenerates. It’s strange, yes, but is it really the worst thing in the world?

For Sara, it is. Especially after she confronts Bishop and learns that he already merged her with an alien! Yes, now Sara is an alien/human hybrid, and she’s not entirely sure what that means for her, or her future with Ava (Jes Macallan).

Eager to turn back to a full human, she demands to know how to reverse the process, but Bishop couldn’t care less. Frustrated and angry, Sara shuts him down, takes back her ring, and leaves him behind in his lab.

But that’s not the end of Sara’s mission. She asks one of the Ava clones to make a clone of her, but without the alien DNA. She’s not trying to return to the love of her life with an alien inside of her, so if she can’t be with Ava, at least some form of her can.

Legends of Tomorrow says bye to Bishop

After a long wait, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow finally makes some progress on Sara’s arc. Since the season 5 finale, Sara has been away from the Legends. Without her, things just haven’t been the same, but fret not fellow fans, things have changed for the better after this week’s episode.

Bishop attempts to upload his consciousness while Sara struggles to get the clone of her body completed. She’s got it in her head that returning in the current form will spell disaster for the Legends, and she doesn’t think she should go back to them.

Rory reminds her that she is Sara regardless of being a clone or an alien, and the team needs her, he needs her. I adore the fact that Rory has such a sentimental side! Watching Purcell bring out those unexpected emotions is always so entertaining to watch. He reminds us that there is way more to Rory than just a grumpy drunk.

With the help of the Ava clones and Gary, they blow up Bishop’s lab, destroying Bishop, his consciousness upload, and any chance of creating more clones. But when Gary, Sara and Mick go to meet up with Kayla, she’s gone. To make matters worse, the creepy aliens on Bishop’s planet descend upon them and begin attacking.

Luckily, Kayla shows up with the ship, but ultimately goes missing in the fight against the aliens. It’s unclear if she died but they have no choice but to leave without her. I know they had no other option but it seems savage after she came back to get them!

Legends of Tomorrow goes back to the finale

Back on the Waverider, Ava is overcome with grief after learning of Sara’s death. She won’t stop rewatching the video of last year’s finale when Sara told David Bowie (Thomas Nicholson) that she planned on proposing to Ava. And the other Legends aren’t doing so great either, especially Behrad (Shayan Sobhian) who gets high and decides to go back in time to the season 5 finale.

If he can stop Sara from being kidnapped in the first place, then maybe they would prevent all of this from happening. For anyone well-versed in time travel, messing with the timeline is the one thing you are not supposed to do. But this is Sara Lance, so we get it.

The rest of the Legends follow Behrad to this point in the past and decide they will all team up to save Sara. They have to be careful so as not to run into themselves, but as they come up with a plan, they realize they don’t remember much at all from that night. Plus, however they decide to go about this, saving Sara means they will never end up meeting Spooner (Lisseth Chavez).

Behrad’s first plan is to get the past Sara onto the Waverider. But this Sara is ready to propose to Ava and refuses to go off with him. Next up are Constantine (Matt Ryan) and Zari (Tala Ashe), who plan on getting Sara to quickly propose so they can all get back on the Waverider STAT. That plan doesn’t work out either, and in the process, Zari realizes Constantine no longer has his magical powers. Perhaps resetting the timeline will make things proper and right?

Alls well that ends well

The season 5 version of Ava realizes that the random Legends she keeps bumping into aren’t the Legends of her timeline and immediately asks them to return to the future. Oh Ava, don’t you know your best friends better than that?

During last year’s finale, Behrad used an exploding mannequin to create a chaotic distraction meant to serve as a decoy for Gary. He would kidnap it instead and not mess up the timeline. Foolproof, right? Nah, not at all.

Spooner is the only one that won’t be recognized so she is sent in to assess the situation but ends up running into Sara. She had one job!

The two of them have a conversation about Spooner’s past, specifically about how she was abducted when she was younger and how she is ashamed to tell her friends. During this conversation, the timeline finally catches up and things are a moment away from aligning perfectly until another Nate from the future shows up telling them to stop their plan because Sara isn’t saved, and things go south from that point onwards.

Behrad does what he can to save Sara anyway but it still doesn’t work out, and he realizes that the distraction he created is why Sara got taken in the first place. The Legends accept defeat and the fact that their captain truly is gone…or is she?

Sara makes her way back to Ava (finally!) and the two share a beautiful moment together that had me ugly crying. #AvaLance is couple goals, and watching their story develop over the past few seasons has been so fun.

With Sara back as half-alien, half-human, she surprises the Legends and makes us cry even more with a beautiful proposal for Ava. We’ve waited what has felt like years for this moment and I’m so glad that they waited for Sara’s return to make it happen. It made her come back and reunion all that sweeter!

Congratulations to the newly engaged couple! Yay!

Is it redundant to say that I truly love DC’s Legends of Tomorrow? They’re just so fun and innovative with their stories, and it just never gets old. Whatever their secret is, they should probably share it with the other DCTV shows on the CW because they could really use the help.

Episode after episode, season after season, Legends of Tomorrow has given us so much to look forward to and enjoy. They never take themselves seriously, and that is why they work so well. This week’s episode is just another reminder of that, and now that Sara is back, I can’t wait to see the Legends back in action together once again!

See ya next week, Legends of Tomorrow fans!

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